The following inscription in pencil occupies the whole of the page, turned vertically:
From Xs 1822. to Ladyday 1823
Pensions – 35 , 12 , 6.
Donations – 65, 15 0
Pensions – 230 12 6
Don. 0 0 0
Pension – 13 , 2 , 6
Don. 383 . 1. 0
Mich. to Xs 208 2 6
Pensions. 34 3 6
Don –––– 970 9 6
1821 1822
Xs to Lady day 1822
P 0 0 0
D – 0 0 0
L Day to Mid –
P– 217 10 0
D 69 2 0
Mid to Mich
P – 0 0 0
Don 352, 16, 0
Mich to Xs
P 195 0 0
Don 50 18 6
885 6 6
The following is written in ink as a separate calculation of the difference in the two years’ totals, between the first and last columns of the last three lines of the pencil inscription:
A letter to Turner’s friend and fellow Royal Academician (Sir) John Soane of late 1823 or early 1824, addressing him in jocular style as ‘Mon
r Auditor’, appears to refer to their election along with the sculptor (Sir) Francis Chantrey as auditors of the Royal Academy’s accounts on 10 December of the former year.
1 The English quarter days for the settling of accounts mentioned in the list are Lady Day (25 March), Midsummer Day (24 June), Michaelmas (29 September) and Christmas (25 December).
Finberg appears to have dated the whole sketchbook to about 1824 on the basis of the last date in this retrospective list of pensions and donations being Christmas 1823. As Ian Warrell has suggested,
2 most of the drawings elsewhere in the book may be considerably earlier (see the introduction).
Although Finberg’s Inventory gives this as page ‘2’, without the usual ‘a’ suffix to indicate a verso, it seems always to have been such. The recto is blank save for John Ruskin’s ‘2’ inscribed in red ink (now very faint) at the bottom right, and the corresponding Turner Bequest number ‘CCX(a) – 2’ stamped in black beside it.
